As a player who's never been reported, why aren't behavior penalties ever forgiven?

[Vivi_Bushido]

That's how I feel. And for me, there's the added complication that I roleplay. I mean, the ToS says "don't curse at anyone," it doesn't say "don't curse at anyone unless you're roleplaying." And it's kind of hard to write a situation with any gravity if the characters involved can't use bad words like adults. Even NPCs curse, and in pretty colorful ways.

Lots of roleplayers say that a GM surely would understand that it's just RP. But after the whole "penalized for a vulgar FC slogan inherited by an unused alt" thing, I no longer believe that.

It would all be okay if strikes were ever forgiven. But if a vengeful bystander can report me for writing a foul-mouthed desert monk miqo'te and get me marked for life if the wrong GM handles it, putting all the hours and dollars and friends I have in the game at risk, then...

I can tell you for a fact GMs do not see it as just roleplay. As far as they are concerned, if you were reported then something offensive was done. This game may have role players but a GM would tell you to RP in a controlled environment like your private chambers then instead of open world RP.

I knew a guy that was RPing calling someone a thief and they didn't like that, got reported and the GMs jailed them. RP does not provide a free pass to the rules. Your freedom ends where some else's feelings begin as they say. You might see it as your character is being their character and you may not mesh/merge it into OOC, but those around you view it differently.

[xbamfo]

This is a bit off topic, but as for sensitive people and the like. I just want to remind everyone that people like the following exist.
She had this interaction with someone, and then decided to get the person removed from the convention entirely.

https://youtu.be/skQvZH3-gQM?t=182

When these people exist, no one is safe from the unnecessary banhammer.

[Thamorian]

Yeah can't really have a good time with randoms in game else you might offend someone and get reported. Using slightly colorful but mainstream language that no one would even think twice about is enough to get you reported, suspended, and banned in game. Keep yourself safe and be vanilla "Hi, we are having some weather today." (better not say it's good weather else someone might disagree and report you).

It's extremely difficult to have any respect for GMs when they will suspend you for a report from someone not even involved in your conversation because you used a swear word as an adjective to say you've been having some bad luck, talking about yourself and not directed at anyone else. One of my LS mates were suspended for this very reason, saying RNG was *rooster*-blocking them. Was talking about themself. Was not insulting anyone, just saying they was having some really bad luck in a slightly colorful way. So don't say it doesn't happen, because it does and you find more examples in the big reddit threads you see time form time with people posting their reasons they got banned.

[SturmChurro]

It's extremely difficult to have any respect for GMs when they will suspend you for a report from someone not even involved in your conversation because you used a swear word as an adjective to say you've been having some bad luck, talking about yourself and not directed at anyone else. One of my LS mates were suspended for this very reason, saying RNG was *rooster*-blocking them. Was talking about themself. Was not insulting anyone, just saying they was having some really bad luck in a slightly colorful way. So don't say it doesn't happen, because it does and you find more examples in the big reddit threads you see time form time with people posting their reasons they got banned.

The more I hear about stuff like this, the more I think that people just roll the dice if they put something like that in the chat. Most of the time nobody will care, but sometimes there will be this one person who just has to report for anything and everything, and the GM's take action. It's actually crazy to think about. That's a crazy thing to actually be banned for, like did the GM take them and personally talk to them over this? Like, that is actually ridiculous, in my opinion, at that point I think it would be wasting the GM's time for something so minor. You are right though, better safe than sorry. Just don't bother chatting, and definitely don't use any "colorful" language, that is equivalent to a death sentence in this game if you get caught.

[Shadha]

Whether it's right or wrong, I hear pretty often that the devs only pay any real attention to the Japanese official forum. Considering that, and just because I was curious how that community felt about all this, I posted a professionally-translated version of this thread in their general discussion, with a few differences to account for the fact that most of them, you know, probably can't speak English.

You can find it here, if you want. Chrome's built-in translator is sufficient to understand most of the posts, but the nuance is lost.

Because of that, I wasn't sure how to feel about the last three posts in the thread, so I had those professionally translated, too:

Coming back from a long vacation, I had automatically been promoted to the position of leader. It's pretty strange, particularly if you think that I now have to take responsibility for my predecessor's ineptitude.

The word “outrageous” would seem to be appropriate here…
In a situation like this, I don't feel that things will be solved just by having the users talk it out between them.

If what Shadha said is true, then it seems that GM screwed up there.
Now, even if we're told that they have properly investigated the facts, I think that a lot of people will continue to be distrustful.
Well, it's true that I don't know exactly what kind of communication happened.

If they won't delete the damage that was done to the account, then we need to order them to make things right... is how I feel.
I don't like to use the terms and conditions as a shield.

It's worth noting that the Japanese general discussion moves a lot more slowly. So, really, I suspect that the devs just...don't really read any of the forums... But still. It was interesting to see. Keep in mind that's a professional translation, so it should be as accurate as possible.

Mostly, I'm wondering how anyone successfully makes any meaningful suggestions about the game. I guess there's this...



But it mostly just points you back here.

The problem is, I feel like this is a serious issue with a reasonable argument to be made, but if they only really pay attention to things that have pages and pages of supportive posts, then...well, almost nobody cares about this until they've received a strike...

[KageTokage]

The problem is, I feel like this is a serious issue with a reasonable argument to be made, but if they only really pay attention to things that have pages and pages of supportive posts, then...well, almost nobody cares about this until they've received a strike...

I really don't understand what does/doesn't properly get the attention of folks who have ties to the dev team.

They most recently stated they'd be forwarding feedback on the raid currency inventory bloat to them, yet dozens of other threads with comparable amounts of posts get ignored.

[Makeda]

How do people even know if they have a “strike” against them somewhere?

[thegreatonemal]

Most of you must have gamer rage really bad and should stop playing multiplayer games at this point. Is it really that hard for you not to type slurs and cuss words when you call somebody out for gameplay issues? I'm quite blunt with people in pf and df when something goes wrong or they aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing and have been playing for five years now. I've had people report me and have never not once been in gm jail or gotten any strikes against my account.

Telling someone they are bad at the game will not get you banned. Yelling screaming and cursing at that player might get you banned. Most of you tend to do the latter. Maybe stop.

[Machka]

If they were made leader of the FC due to inactiveness of the previous leader why did they not change the slogan before they were reported? They had to have known it was vulgar and could have easily changed it upon becoming the new leader. Ignoring it they are just as guilty as the person who wrote it.

Just to clarify something from the OP, according to the original account of things (linked by OP) the FC they inherited was on an alt that wasn't even on the same datacenter as the character they usually play. So it's entirely possible they simply did not know that the FC had been passed to them.

I can speak with some firsthand experience about this. In the lull before Shadowbringers, many of us had either unsubbed or simply took a break for a while, with only a handful of us logging in sporadically. Hours before servers went down for the 5.0 patch maintenance I got a ping on discord from my FC leader. Apparently at some point the past few months, their position as FC leader got passed to me due to inactivity, exactly like in the situation described by OP.

At this point I had been playing once or twice a week for over a month, and can honestly say I had absolutely no idea that I was FC leader. It wasn't until I logged in and looked at my rank that I realized I had that shiny gold emblem instead of the usual officer's one. If that could happen to me on my main while playing casually, it could just as easily have happened to someone's alt on an entirely different datacenter.

[Shadha]

Most of you must have gamer rage really bad and should stop playing multiplayer games at this point. Is it really that hard for you not to type slurs and cuss words when you call somebody out for gameplay issues? I'm quite blunt with people in pf and df when something goes wrong or they aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing and have been playing for five years now. I've had people report me and have never not once been in gm jail or gotten any strikes against my account.

Telling someone they are bad at the game will not get you banned. Yelling screaming and cursing at that player might get you banned. Most of you tend to do the latter. Maybe stop.

I mean, the guy I mentioned in the first post didn't do any of that and still got a strike. I get that it's easy to just blame the people who seem to think there's a problem, and it's just as easy to believe there isn't a problem if it hasn't affected you personally, but neither of those are really arguments that we're wrong. I'm not defending everyone who's posted in this thread, but many of us are actually pretty calm about this.

Just imagine, what if the guy who was warned over his FC slogan had had two strikes from years ago, and had learned his lesson from them, but then got permanently banned because it was strike three?

That that could happen at all means something's wrong with the system. I'm not in here saying people shouldn't get in trouble for screaming at people. I'm just doggedly insisting that we should be forgiven for behavior violations a year or so later. Just because someone has a bad day or makes a bad decision three times in nine years, assuming GMs don't make any mistakes, doesn't mean they deserve to be permanently banned from the game. That's draconian.

When you factor in that people report others to be vengeful, or because they said a word they didn't like and were able to convince the GM they were being harrassed, you don't even have to do anything really wrong. It all depends on who hears you and which GM reviews the report. That's literally it. And if you don't think people can be controlling, spiteful, or overly-sensitive (as in, people reporting cursing generally, not even directed at them, when there's a language filter for a reason), then I feel like you've not been paying attention. People are tribalistic and emotional, especially online. I'm not being hateful, it's just how our brains work. And if they label someone as an "bad", like you kinda seem to be doing with us, the context doesn't really matter to them anymore.

What's more is that I've literally seen people who are somewhat poorly-regarded by a server's community bait people into getting emotional and cursing at them, and then successfully report them. Not me, or any of my friends, thank god. Just in shout chat, and then I saw them talking about it later. Just, yeah, this system's busted and can be weaponized by manipulative people. Yes, I realize they shouldn't have let themselves get baited. Doesn't mean they deserve to get banned from the game because they upset someone who actively wants to punish them.

A simple system of forgiveness would go a long way.

How do people even know if they have a “strike” against them somewhere?

You can't see your strikes, but you get one whenever a GM punishes you for breaking the rules. There's more detail about the punishment system in a link at the bottom of my first post in the thread.